One in every eleven persons born in Mexico has gone to the U.S. The National Review reported that in 2014 $1.87 billion was spent on incarcerating illegal immigrant criminals….Now add hundreds of billions for welfare and remittances! MICHAEL BARGO, Jr…… for the AMERICAN THINKER.COM

Flash robberies: The newest homeland threat

A recent incident on a train in Oakland, California offers a glimpse into how domestic terrorism may soon affect all of us, close up and personally. In that incident, a group of teenagers swarmed onto a train, robbed several passengers, beat two of them, then quickly escaped before police arrived. See here and here.

Flash mobs are nothing new, and in fact, many of them are actually good, as when a number of people in a shopping mall suddenly spring a pleasant surprise and perform a rehearsed, choreographed music routine.

Some flash mobs, by contrast, are criminal. Groups of criminals, in concert, have been known to swarm a retail store, quickly stealing as much as they can carry, and then making their escape before law enforcement can respond.

Criminals are inventive and resourceful, and now that the Oakland incident has made the news, there will be plenty more crews of robbers who are already taking notes and planning their own heist, perhaps on a larger scale.

It is only a matter of time before someone (actually, many) figures out that there is money to be made by inciting civil disorder. It would not take much "community organizing" to pull it off. The police cannot be everywhere, nor can they respond quickly enough to this kind of crime.

The next thought is to ask, when the risk escalates, is, what will we, the ordinary citizens, do when we fear to take a train or bus, or to go shopping? One possible remedy comes to mind, as follows.

The name Bernhard Goetz has largely been forgotten, but in 1984, nearly every American was familiar with what came to be known as the subway vigilante incident. During that era, before Rudolph Giuliani became mayor, crime on the New York subway system was infamous, and worse yet, the response by law enforcement was tepid and ineffective. It was in this context that Goetz took matters into his own hands. He pulled a gun and shot three teenagers, on a train, who already had criminal records, and who were intimidating him for money. One of the robbers was paralyzed for life.

Only when Giuliani became mayor (ten years later), and imposed what some considered draconian law enforcement measures, did the crime rate (including murder) in New York City dramatically decrease. Giuliani proved that by enforcing laws against even so-called "minor" infractions, the ripple effect is to increase respect for the law in general, thereby reducing more serious crime. Giuliani was well aware of the "broken windows" principle, and he used it to good effect.

In the modern context, official sympathy in criminal incidents seems always to be conferred not so much on the victims, but more on the criminals. For example, in the Oakland incident, officials are refusing to release videos of the criminals because they estimate that the tender muffins might be only teenagers. Poor kids – they must be protected. Damn the victims seems to be the effect of such policies.

Such concessions to violent criminals can only encourage them. It requires no crystal ball to predict that flash robberies will increase in numbers and severity, at least partly due to official unwillingness to crush the tendency before it gets out of hand.

If the incidences of criminal flash mobs do, in fact, continue, and get worse, then the importance of the Second Amendment will become apparent even to liberals – or at least those who, like Bernhard Goetz, have been mugged.

"And
yes, professor, black criminality is just as wildly out of proportion in
Washington as it is in the rest of country. Even more so."

"Obama is no
fool and he understands -- having encouraged Black Lives Matter and the war on
police and law enforcement, having facilitated ballooning welfare rolls and
doubling student debt to $1.35 trillion, having presided over a flood of
immigrants illegally crossing the southern border, and having pushed
unprecedented deficit spending that added nearly a trillion dollars annually to
the federal debt and doubling that debt in eight years to $20 trillion -- that
the U.S. is nearer collapse than at any previous time. And every Marxist knows
that socialist transformation first requires collapse of the old order."

For Nicole Cuff and her friends,
the 1992 Los Angeles riots used to feel like a piece of history, told in old
stories by their parents or discussed and analyzed in school.

Recently, though, it’s started to feel much more real to her —
like something that could happen again in the near future.

Cuff, a coordinator at an entertainment management company who
is half black and half Filipina, said her feelings come in part from several
years of headlines, viral videos of police force and Black Lives Matter protests over police
shootings of African Americans.

“It evokes some unfelt anger that hasn’t been tapped into,” said
Cuff, 26, who has a diverse group of friends who have become much more
politically engaged in the last few years. “When nobody pays a price for it …
it could set people off.”

Her view reflects what researchers who study public attitudes
about the L.A. riots say is a distinct shift: For the first time since
the riots, there is an uptick in the number of Angelenos who fear that another
civil disturbance is likely, according to a Loyola Marymount University poll
that has been surveying Los Angeles residents every five years since the 1992
disturbances.

Nearly 6 out of 10 Angelenos think another riot is likely in the
next five years, increasing for the first time after two decades of steady
decline. That’s higher than in any year except for 1997, the first year the
survey was conducted, and more than a 10-point jump compared with the 2012
survey.

Young adults ages 18 to 29, who didn’t directly experience the
riots, were more likely than older residents to feel another riot was a
possibility, with nearly 7 out of 10 saying one was likely, compared with about
half of those 45 or older. Those who were unemployed or worked part-time were
also more pessimistic, as were black and Latino residents, compared with whites
and Asians, the poll found.

Researchers theorized that the turnaround may be linked to
several factors, including the more polarized national dialogue on race sparked
by police shootings in Ferguson, Mo., and elsewhere, as well as by the tenor of
last year’s presidential election. Moreover, many parts of L.A. still suffer
from some of the economic problems and lack of opportunities that fueled anger
before the riots.

“Economic disparity continues to increase, and at the end of the
day, that is what causes disruption,” said Fernando Guerra, a political science
professor who has worked on the survey since its inception. “People are trying
to get along and want to get along, but they understand economic tension boils
over to political and social tension.”

There
was a moment of silence candlelight vigil in Koreatown to commemoratethe 17th
anniversary of the Los Angeles riots. This year's theme focused on teaching
their history to Korean American youth, many of whom were born after the riots,
during which tensions between the city's black and Korean communities exploded.

Although the city's unemployment rate last year was about half
of what it was in 1992, the median income of Angelenos, when adjusted for
inflation, is lower than it was around the time of the riots. Poverty rates
still remain high at 22%, comparable with the years preceding the riots.

Jamal Jones, a Leimert Park resident and community leader who
grew up spending a lot of time in South L.A., said if the tension revolved
around race 25 years ago, lately, it’s been along economic lines related to
housing and affordability, with residents feeling the pain across racial
groups.

Jones, who is 39, said people like him who remember what it was
like around the time of the riots know that the type of civil unrest that took
place in 1992 wasn’t ultimately effective in fixing underlying social problems.
Those who are younger, he said, might not have the same perspective, and want
to act immediately on the news and images they’re seeing.

“We’ve done that, that’s been the strategy for so many years.
We’re going to have to mobilize in a different way,” he said. “The young lions
are getting all this fuel. We have to be careful, we’ve got to channel that
energy in the right direction.”

Despite the increased concern about another riot, the survey
found most Angelenos continued to feel optimistic about race relations in the city,
with three-quarters of respondents saying different racial and ethnic groups
got along well.

Alberto Nava, 38, said he felt both race relations in the city
and police treatment of minorities had vastly improved since the time of the
riots. But the new political climate and the election of President Trump made
it feel like another riot may be brewing, he said. His friend Marco Delgado,
45, with whom he was lunching in East L.A., agreed and said social media had
also changed the speed at which people react to high-profile incidents.

“People get emotional quickly after seeing things on social
media. It can spark a mob mentality,” Delgado said.

Delgado also said that in the last few years, he’s noticed a
change in how his two children, ages 17 and 18, view race relations and
politics.

“They are more into politics. Before, when I watched the news or
‘The Daily Show,’ they asked me to change the channel. Now we watch it together
and they ask me to record those shows,” he said.

Brianne Gilbert, one of the researchers behind the survey, said
the ubiquity of smartphone videos and social media may have made it so that
there are many more moments like the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

“That kind of inflection point, that trigger point, those times
are coming up sooner, more and more frequently than we’ve seen in the past,”
she said. “We’re able to see things on more of an international scale, with
social media and the Internet.”

Eighteen-year-old Jose Almanza, a freshman at the University of
Southern California, said he sensed that agitation and interest among his
friends. They all seem to want to go out to march, whether it’s for women’s
rights or Black Lives Matter, he said.

“They blame something, they don’t know what it is exactly,” said
Almanza, who grew up in Boyle Heights. “They can’t express it, so they just go
out. A lot of people are doing it to be a part of something.”

Guerra, the political science professor, said the recent protest
movements and election cycle may have shifted how people view a riot or
uprising as a way to voice their discontent.

“Marching and protesting and, if necessary, rioting, is more
likely today as a course of action. It almost seems more legitimate as a political
strategy than ever before,” he said.

Some Angelenos said time had softened the edges that had led to
the anger of 1992.

Tuesday afternoon, Javier Capetillo, 66, sitting on a chair in
his East L.A. boxing academy, shook his head no and said in Spanish that he
didn’t believe another riot like the ones that happened 25 years ago was
possible. Capetillo and his son, Javier Capetillo Jr., lived in South L.A. when
the riots broke out.

Capetillo said he remembered the years leading up to the L.A.
riots, filled with crime, gang violence and police brutality. The riots, he
said, allowed people to express their frustrations.

"People think things through
nowadays, and there's less crime. There was anger towards Hispanics, blacks and
cops. But after the riots things got better," Capetillo said.

Capetillo Jr., 41, a part-owner of his dad's boxing academy,
said he remembered what it was like to be a hot-headed youngster eager to take
to the streets, having grown up amid gang violence and racial tensions in South
L.A. When the riots broke out, as a 16-year-old, he didn’t think twice before
grabbing cans of spray paint and heading to Long Beach with friends to wreak
havoc.

“I was angry. I got beat up by a police officer in an alley one
time and this was instant gratification,” he said. “But later on I met my
mentor who turned out to be a cop. He got me my first job.”